HyperX brought a variety of new products meant to help people communicate, hear, and maybe even play better in their favorite games to CES 2019. It also announced expanded availability outside the U.S. or new models for some of its existing products.
Gaming headsets are more than just expensive headphones. They're also supposed to make it easy for players to communicate, so they also offer built-in microphones--and HyperX is known for making good-for-a-headset mics. Now the company is applying what it learned from those products to the standalone Quadcast microphone.
Quadcast uses a USB connection to make it easy for PC gamers and streamers alike to capture audio. (As opposed to the slightly more complicated setup used by the likes of the Ember XLR announced earlier by Blue Microphones.) Quadcast also offers a tap-to-mute feature, a light to indicate when the mic is broadcasting, and four polar options meant to improve audio capture in different situations.
It's clear that HyperX is chasing the success Blue has found with its Yeti microphone. That mic has been very popular with podcasters, video-makers, and streamers for years. Whether or not the Quadcast will be able to catch up to the abominable snowman will depend on its recording quality and people’s willingness to try something new. We’ll find out when it debuts at $140 in March.
HyperX also brought two new gaming headsets, the Cloud Orbit and Cloud Orbit S, to CES 2019. Both feature Waves Nx 3D audio as well as 1,000mm Planar Magnetic Drivers from Audeze. The Cloud Orbit S differentiates itself by including support for Waves Nx head tracking to “deliver a stable hyper-realistic 360-degree audio environment where the users head movements bring the room to life.”
That isn't the only headset news HyperX announced at CES. The company revealed a new model of the Cloud Alpha headset, the aptly named Purple Edition, to offer another color option for prospective buyers. It also said the Cloud MIX is going to be available worldwide after being exclusive to the U.S. Neither headset is truly “new,” but they’ll be “new enough” to their intended audience.
The Cloud Orbit and Cloud Orbit S will be available in the U.S. for $300 and $330, respectively, in the second quarter of 2019. The Cloud Alpha Purple Edition will also debut in the second quarter at $100; the Cloud MIX is now available globally for $200. That essentially means HyperX has a new or new-enough product for every segment of the gaming headset market arriving in 2019.
HyperX also brought a new Pulsefire Raid mouse featuring a Pixart 3389 sensor, 11 programmable buttons, and Omron switches rated to withstand 20 million clicks. And, of course, the all-but-contractually-obligated RGB lighting. Those pretty lights also found their way into an updated version of the Predator DDR4 RGB modules that debuted at CES 2018, which have been upped to 16GB.
The Pulsefire Raid will debut in the second quarter of 2019 for $60, which is pretty much standard when it comes to gaming mice. HyperX said the 16GB Predator DDR4 RGB modules will be available in speeds of 3,000MHz and 3,200MHz individually and as kits of two and four modules. (Bringing the maximum capacity to a respective 32GB and 64GB.) They’ll debut sometime in January.
